IN THE run-up to December 31 millennium hype has taken
grip, bringing in on the act everyone from authors
and TV producers to apocalyptic fanatics and supermarkets.
After all this is no mere end of a year, decade or even
a century, but an event witnessed but once every thousand
years.

Of course the whole issue of the millennium reflects
a Christian-centric view. Outside the Christian
Western world the year 2000 will actually be the year
5760 according to the Jewish calendar, 1420 according
to the Moslem calendar, 2544 according to Buddhism
and 5119 in the current Maya great cycle. And as the
drinks flow freely on that special night, you might
want to consider a number of pertinent questions:
What exactly is the millennium? And are we actually
celebrating on the correct date?

In this fascinating and very readable little book,
Stephen Jay Gould, renowned for his superb writings
on evolutionary biology, takes us on an historical,
astronomical and calendrical journey through a
myriad of millennial-related issues. Well versed
in the biblical texts, Gould displays an adept skill
at combining scientific analysis, philosophical
insights and wonderful prose.

For Gould the What? When? and Why? questions of the
millennium and the measurement of time exemplify
attempts by a confused humanity to impose meaning
and order on a world beset with randomness. Such attempts
do not represent mere academic urges but are rooted
in the social needs of humanity.

Over thousands of years humanity has devised various
means of measuring time. Time expresses actual processes
in the physical world. Some subjective measurements
of time, for example, years and days, do relate approximately
to natural frames of reference, the rotation of the
earth around the sun or the earth's daily rotation
on its axis. Other measurements, such as weeks, hours
and minutes, represent practical attempts to measure
change.

However, the accepted definition of a millennium,
any period of one thousand years, did not originate
from nature or practical calendrics. It does not
correspond to factual astronomical cycles, unlike
the primary cycles of days, lunations and years,
or the practical needs of humanity, but rather social
factors, the peculiarities of Christianity. It
is the domain of eschatology that bears responsibility
for the arbitrary construction of the millennium.

Millennial thinking is embedded in the apocalyptic
writings of the bible. The traditional Christian
millennium is the future reign of Jesus lasting one
thousand years, following a final battle between
Christ and Satan. Satan loses, and is cast into the
lake of fire and brimstone, and Jesus wins, overseeing
a Last Judgement of all the dead.

In a period of Roman oppression, social turmoil and
ideological uncertainty, this was no utopian dream
relegated to some future unspecified time. Jesus
and his initial followers fully expected the fulfilment
of the apocalypse and the inception of the millennium
in their lifetime.

The failed consummation of the second coming resulted
over the generations in ardent Christian followers
setting, and then postponing, the date of the future
apocalypse. But how did the apocalyptic millennium
transform itself into a calendrical measurement,
the completion of a secular period of a thousand years
in human history? The answer is related to the failure
of the expected biblical millennium to materialise.

To get from the apocalyptic to the calendrical millennium
required a convoluted rummage through biblical
symbolism and the tried and tested method of analogy.
This is how it works: "One day is with the Lord as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Peter 3:8).
The Book of Revelation informs us that the first post-apocalyptic
age, the millennium, will endure for a thousand years.
In God time that means a day. Genesis tells us that
God created the world in six days and put his feet up
on the seventh. In God time, using symbolic comparison,
this means that world history unfolds for six thousand
years, followed by a final thousand-year period
of millennial heaven on earth. Put like that it makes
sense, if you ignore the opening two chapters of the
Book of Genesis which make it clear that the Creation
had come and gone.

Just one small problem though: when exactly is the
earthly six thousand year period up? In other words,
when precisely is the millennium (the apocalyptic
that is, not the calendrical)? Or are they the same?

In order to work out this perplexing problem one must
fix a starting date, a source of endless dispute amongst
Christian scholars. Numerous attempts shattered
against the rock of time, as millennial projections
became faded memories. In time people placed more
significance on millennial turning points. The
traditional belief is that Jesus was born at such
a turning point. Our calendar counts backwards from
this beginning in packages of millennia BC and forward
in packages of millennia AD. Still that crucial question
persists: at which millennial changeover was Christ
born? Prior to the year 1000 it was held to be the fifth
millennium, making the year 1000 itself quite an
important date. But the year came and went with nothing
of apocalyptic interest transpiring.

Attention then focused on the year 2000. Modern historical
scholarship in the 17th century demanded that in
order to prove creation in 4000 BC symbolic analogy
be corroborated with data from history. The idea
was hit upon, using the bible and other historical
documents, of counting back from the birth of Jesus,
through the duration of Roman and Near Eastern empires,
the reigns of the kings of Judah and Israel, the ages
of the patriarchs, and last but not least, the week
of creation, to see whether the newly acquired preferred
date tallied with the historical record.

It was Archbishop James Ussher who performed this
arduous task in 1650, setting the time of creation
at noon on 23 October 4004 BC. The four-year discrepancy
is explained by an error made by the sixth-century
inventor of the BC-AD system, a monk by the name of
Dionysius Exignus. Herod died in 4 BC, so, barring
being compelled to delete some oft-told stories
from the New Testament, Jesus could not have been
born later than 4 BC, not 1 AD as commonly believed.
We then logically count back four thousand years
and conclude that the world was created in 4004 BC

It all makes sense really, with only one problem:
according to this calculation six thousand years
after the creation was at noon on 23 October 1996,
and we all missed it. But, leaving aside the mountain
of scientific evidence pointing to the age of the
earth being somewhat older than six thousand years,
even that date, according to Gould, is wrong: Dionysius
apparently made another mistake, omitting the year
zero AD.

This caused heated debates over the years on when
exactly a millennium, or for that matter a century,
ends. For Gould common-sense means with the years
marked '99 yet, according to Gould, historical records
show that New Year celebrations took place on January
1 1701, 1801 and even 1901. Gould explains how in the
past scholars and those in power overwhelmingly
favoured centuries beginning with years marked
'01 rather than '00. Not wanting to undermine the
authority of the church, they had to accept, unwittingly
or not, the perceived mistaken calendrical calculations
of Dionysius that Jesus was born in 1 AD, the Year of
Our Lord.

In fact Dionysius calculated that Jesus was born
eight days before 1st January 1 AD, on 25th December
1 BC. On a Christian basis therefore, if we ignore
the correct date of Herod's death, 1st January 2000
is actually justified as honouring two thousand
years since the nativity in 1 BC. Mathematically,
though, there won't have been 2,000 AD years until
the end of 31st December 2000.

Today most people accept the logic of centuries beginning
in years marked '00, and so the new calendrical millennium
is being celebrated on 1st January 2000, a nice round
number, and just ninety-nine years since the beginning
of the 20th century.

The new millennium won't herald an apocalyptic Second
Coming, nor will it mean any fundamental change in
the lives of ordinary people. But if you are going
to read any book on this fascinating subject, I recommend
you read Gould's highly entertaining account.